The reward is sucking away their money.
The risk is elevating Hillary to the election.
Presuming it is a bad idea to advance their most leftist candidate presumes the two are equally likely of election, and that is completely counter to the clear reality that independent moderates elect presidents. He does not have an equal chance at those votes in comparison to her. Therefore, risking her ascendancy is far too great a risk to take for the marginal reward of consuming their money.
McCain’s best chance is running vs Obama. That is why the risk portion of risk / reward is now too high and Operation Chaos is now complete.
Amen to all you say. I FEAR hillary! much more if she wins the WH than I could ever fear obama.
That's only part of the reason, really, in my eyes, it's not even the primary one. This election has already been the longest lasting one in recent American history, and we've still got six months of it to go. Overexposure of Presidental candidates has the effect of tiring people of them; to me, it seems certain that whoever occupies the majority of our television screen time between now and the conventions is the one folks are going to get the most tired of. Hillary and Obama are not just writing McCain's playbook, they're also writing the jokes of the late-night comics and the themes of the political columnists if one of them should get elected.
I just don't see that big a risk, the "losing" side in a convention battle will have a vested interest in seeing that the winning Democrat: a) doesn't win the general election, or b) is unable to effectively govern if it achieves the White House.
Frankly, a Hillary or Obama perceived victory scares the pants off of the folks in the red districts that sent Rat congresscritters to Washington the last couple of elections, just because they were becoming wary about the war. Conservatives have lost the White House, at least until 2012, we severely need to get the Congress back to act as a very important check on the power of a liberal (be it any one of the three still in the running) to preserve our nation. For me, Hillary Clinton motivates more people to vote for a Republican for the House or Senate that does Obama.